Servant Leadership in Columbus, GA

The first time I heard the words servant leadership, I was an employee at Synovus Financial Corp. We had gathered at the Columbus Convention and Trade Center for an employee meeting. Bill Turner, the contemporary father of the Synvous Family of Companies, was on the stage espousing the virtues of this new age but ancient philosophy. He said servant leadership would one day change the world. Mr. Turner is not the only person to sing the virtues of servant leadership, however, in the Columbus, Georgia area, no single person has done more to spread awareness on this countercultural way of thinking.

When I'm out and about meeting with clients or in casual settings with friends and business acquaintances, I'm asked, "What is servant leadership?" For starters, there are several definitions of the world's greatest leadership philosophy. The Pastoral Institute's definition says, "Servant leadership is a lifelong journey that includes the discovery of one's self, a desire to serve others and a commitment to lead." Robert Greenleaf, the man credited with coining the term defined it as, "The servant-leader is servant first... Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from the one who is leader first... The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and the most difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?" My own personal definiton based on the previous two is, "Love others, help them develop their God-given talents and move out of their way."

These servant leadership definitions are noble and ideal, but do they have relevance in today's society? I believe they do inspite of the desperate and troubling times in which we currently live, and so does Kent Keith, bestselling author and CEO of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. In the very first chapter of his book, The Case for Servant Leadership, he writes, "The case for servant leadership is about creating a better world. There does not have to be so much pain and suffering, so much war and violence, so much starvation and disease, so many crushed dreams and untapped talents, so many problems unresolved and so many portunities ignored. The world does not have to be like this."